I am currently a Contributing Editor at Wired Magazine in the UK, having written for Wired UK since its launch in 2009, and speak regularly on the impact of developing technologies on consumer behaviors at Wired Consulting events and elsewhere.
In my copious free time, I write for Wired, GQ and elsewhere on the emerging digital culture, from gaming giants to adventurous startups, and provide creative insight for technology companies. In previous lives, I managed corporate communications for a large software company, and was a senior creative at a Hoxton agency. But then again, who wasn't?
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My calm, clear, Forbes brain understands that this is a wholly sensible thing to do. Their Brad Pitt vehicle, World War Z, based on the book by Max Brooks, is a valuable intellectual property and, along with the postponed anti-Capitalist epic G.I. Joe: Retaliation, a good bet for a 2013 hit. Protecting the rights to create materials to promote that film, or even to act as profit centers in themselves, is a sensible and responsible move.

On the other hand, FOR THE LOVE OF HEAVEN ZOMBIES ZOMBIES ZOMBIES. Also, did we learn nothing from Battle: Los Angeles? Well, as Forbes brain says, we probably learned that you can turn a profit selling 60,000 mid-priced copies of a mediocre game on the back of a middle-to-big movie license. But nonetheless.

Brains and no-brainers

Don’t get me wrong. I love zombies. I have delivered speeches on the subject of zombies. I’ve watched some truly awful zombie movies, and of course many great ones. I’ve played Fort Zombie, a game that is often more painful to play than seeing civilization collapse under an actual zombie apocalypse, from beginning to end. Because it featured zombies.

But there’s a limit.

I thought that limit had been reached when it was announced that Terminal Reality, the adaptation specialists behind Kinect Star Wars, Ghostbusters and Spy Hunter:Nowhere to Run, would be producing a game based on The Walking Dead. And that that game would be a first-person shooter. Starring the lovable militia types from the TV show.

(I suspect the racial hatred will probably be downplayed somewhat in the interests of audience identification. Although it might be tempting to map it to the D-pad, I guess. I’ve seen games make worse decisions.)

This despite the presence of a series of games by Telltale Games already based on the Walking Dead comic book series (spoilers: they feature zombies), and the existence of perhaps one FPS involving zombies for every adult human being on Earth.

The horde

But no. The app stores of every mobile device groan under the weight of zombies, and the simple AI of the zombie makes it a perfect tool for the knocked-out combat game. Remember Land of the Dead: Road to Fiddler’s Green? A game where I found myself thinking “hold on, these zombies are a tad stupid”?

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